Museum Subway Station Toronto

Jul 20, 2016

The photographs are nothing special but the Museum subway station on the Yonge-University TTC line at Bloor and University in Toronto is spectacular.

This subway station always looks great but on a recent civic holiday it was almost deserted and looked even better than usual.

Museum Station opened in 1963 at Queen's Park at Charles Street West, and across the street from Royal Ontario Museum (where it gets the name).

It originally used the same color scheme as was standard on the Bloor-Danforth line – plain cream-coloured tiles, rectangular in shape, predominanted with a strip of blue tiles near the ceiling. The station name was sandblasted to the wall and painted this same color of blue using the unique TTC font.

Major renovations to the station's platform area were completed in April 2008. The changes were designed to evoke exhibits at the nearby ROM (Royal Ontario Museum)

The many supporting columns in the station were remade to resemble exhibits that might be found across the street at the Royal Ontario Museum – the ancient Egyptian deity Osiris, Toltec warriors, columns like those found in the Parthenon, China's Forbidden City columns, and First Nations homes.

The changes included completely removing the original tile scheme from the subway platform. The walls were then covered with mauve aluminum plate panels, with inset Lexan to display the large "MUSEUM" station names. The Lexan panels feature a historical hieroglyphic inscription from the ROM.

The renovation was designed by Diamond and Schmitt Architects and constructed by Jeviso Construction Corporation.

The image below shows the original 1963 tiles and color scheme for the Bloor-Danforth line.